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Found 32 article(s) for author 'Niall Ferguson'

Whither American Exceptionalism? Niall Ferguson, 2018, Book Chapter, “When you give an essay a title like “Whither American exceptionalism?” there is obviously a joke to be made. Is American exceptionalism withering? Th at is really the question that I want to pose. Let me fi rst talk a little bit about economic and political history, and tell you what has not been exceptional about American history. Let us look at population fi gures since the time of the early republic (see figure 1); the gray line is the population of the United States. Th e x- axis is on a logarithmic scale so that we can fi t China in. Th is story is a clear- cut one.” Link

Financial Systems, Economic Growth, and Globalization in the Era of the Cold War. Niall Ferguson, 2017, Book Chapter, “Financial historians have long been interested in the relationship between financial innovation and economic growth (eg, Rousseau and Sylla 2003). From the rise of the Dutch Republic to the golden age of the pax americana, banks, capital markets, and other…” Link

‘Chimerica’ and the Rule of Central Bankers. Niall Ferguson, August 27, 2015, Opinion, “Two years after the taper tantrum, this was the week of the Chimerican chill. Economist Moritz Schularick and I coined the word Chimerica in these pages in 2007, combining China and America, to describe the symbiotic relationship increasingly dominating the world economy. That is even truer now, as the past several days have shown. For the first time in financial history, a sneeze in Shanghai gave Wall Street—and almost every other stock market in the world—a cold.” Link

The Nasty Greek Outcomes that Democracy Precludes. Niall Ferguson, July 3, 2015, Opinion. “In Anthony Burgess’s dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange/, written in the invented language “Nadsat,” the degenerate hooligan Alex ultimately resolves to settle down. “Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth,” wrote Burgess, “and your old droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate.” Burgess’s US publisher thought this ending too happy, and axed the final chapter. I have come to the conclusion that Burgess was right and his publisher wrong. Most delinquent youths do eventually grow up, usually without the brutal…” Link

The Rise and Fall of Krugmania in the UK. Niall Ferguson, May 11, 2015, Opinion. “It is already conventional to name the former party leaders Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage as the biggest losers of the British general election, closely followed by all the opinion pollsters and the narcissistic comedian Russell Brand. But this is to understate the abject defeat suffered by some Keynesian economists, and in particular the Nobel prize winning former Princeton professor Paul Krugman…” Link

The UK Labour party should blame Keynes for their election defeat. Niall Ferguson, May 10, 2015, Opinion. “Credit where credit is due. Lynton Crosby is getting the plaudits for the Conservative party’s successful election strategy, but the real architect of this victory was surely George Osborne, the chancellor. Leave aside Labour’s collapse in Scotland, arguably the election’s most striking result. In England, the Conservatives won because Mr Osborne was right and his critics were wrong…” Link

The Return of Volatility Is Mainly About Monetary Policy. Niall Ferguson, October 26, 2014 , Opinion. “Four weeks ago I was in London at a conference organized by one of the biggest U.S. banks. The program included a session with the dread title, “2014, The Death of Volatility?” As it followed a rash of similar presentations and articles this year—“The Strange Death of Volatility,” “The Day Volatility Died” and the like—I knew from experience that a spike in volatility was imminent. And sure enough, since the end of last month, financial markets around the world have gone from gliding up an escalator to riding a bucking bronco…” May require purchase or user account. Link

Central bank rules in historical perspective. Niall Ferguson, September 1, 2014, Paper. “This article explains that, while Walter Bagehot׳s Lombard Street had a rule about the central bank׳s role as a lender of last resort, it was not a precursor of the rules-based approach to monetary policy. Monetary policy rules came into fashion in the 1980s and 1990s when it became clear from the 1970s just how dangerous discretion could be. Under different historical circumstances before that and in more recent times, it was rules that seemed much inferior to discretion.” May require purchase or user account. Link

Central Bank Balance Sheets: Expansion and Reduction since 1900. Niall Ferguson, May 2014, Paper. “In this paper we study the evolution of central banks’ balance sheets in twelve advanced economies since 1900. We present a new dataset assembled from a wide array of historical sources. We find that balance sheet size in most developed countries has fluctuated within rather clearly defined bands relative to output. Historically, clusters of big expansions and contractions of balance sheets have been associated with periods of geopolitical or financial crisis. This explains the co-movement between the size of central bank balance sheets and public debt levels in the past century…” Link

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